Getting my own set up literally ruined the "coffee shop experience" for me for life!!! The only thing I enjoy about going to the "high end" shops now is looking at their awesomely expensive set ups, which frankly, I am yet to see most know how to use.

I don't consider myself even in the top 1/3 of good espresso makers, amateur or not, but it is clear to me I have only being to 1-3 places worth revisiting. Sorry, but maybe I simply have had poor experiences over the last decade, and that includes about a dozen trips to Italy!

My experience has been similar. Even with my older gear, my "coffee rating" scale became

Good - what you'd get from a typical cafe (balanced assumed)
Very good - interesting flavor note
Excellent - multiple layers of interesting flavors

Seldom do I get an "excellent" espresso from any cafe.

Wow, revelatory. Heretofore I thought I was just being a biased douche about what I was getting in the cafes v. what I was getting at home. Although my cousin agreed about the last place. My tongue wasn't lying--and yes I've been to some of the 'best' in my coffee 'superb' region. When I go to cafes most of what I get I would describe as 'flat' or 'uninteresting.' Granted I've pulled some dogs--had a sink shot last week for the first time in a while-- but yes I just don't think a lot of baristas know/give a hoot about what they are doing.

During nicer weather or if we are out and about--maybe for a walk and/or have no time to make my 4 shot cappuccino, will stop at one of two cafes I know make decent drinks. It is $5 for this drink including tip. I love making my own drinks with my own machines and freshly roasted favorite beans in the comfort of my home. Ninety-nine percent of the time, they taste better than the cafe drinks. Plus figured it out, if I didn't have my own equipment--it would cost $150 a month for my one drink a day. Yikes?

thirdcrackfourthwave wrote:I just don't think a lot of baristas know/give a hoot about what they are doing.

I think it's more that they know exactly what they are doing, but are doing something very, very different than what we do at home.

A cafe needs to serve as many drinks as they can per hour with no "bad" ones, for the least cost that they can to attract and maintain customers and profit margin. They're a business. Most of their customers probably expect coffee to be dominated by roast flavors and, in the land of the 20-oz latte, to need a sugar or two as well. "Black tea, lavender, and plum" probably wouldn't go over too well. Nor would customers be willing to wait 15 minutes for their drink with only two people in front of them.

As hobbyists, it's OK to take 5-10 minutes per drink with elaborate rituals, buy crazy expensive coffee, and blow a few shots from time to time. It's a great luxury compared to what those that run and staff cafes deal with every day.

dsc106 wrote:Love Proud Mary! Hello to another PDXer. Which shops stopped doing latte art?

I'm sure I'll still enjoy going out for espresso after things lift, but it's certainly lost its mystique.

Proud Mary is what I subscribe to although I was leaning heavily into Heart's Ramon Hernandez for a spell.

I'm going to chalk the lack of art at some places up to 2020. I'm sure everyone is trying their best and they were having off days like I've had this year.

What I miss most is having a quick drink at the cafe bar and feeling the energy of the place from hustle and bustle to slow sleepy morning. I'll be heading back to shops for that once/when things recover.

Jeff wrote:I think it's more that they know exactly what they are doing, but are doing something very, very different than what we do at home.

A cafe needs to serve as many drinks as they can per hour with no "bad" ones, for the least cost that they can to attract and maintain customers and profit margin. They're a business. Most of their customers probably expect coffee to be dominated by roast flavors and, in the land of the 20-oz latte, to need a sugar or two as well. "Black tea, lavender, and plum" probably wouldn't go over too well. Nor would customers be willing to wait 15 minutes for their drink with only two people in front of them.

As hobbyists, it's OK to take 5-10 minutes per drink with elaborate rituals, buy crazy expensive coffee, and blow a few shots from time to time. It's a great luxury compared to what those that run and staff cafes deal with every day.

I disagree with a lot of the above. By far, the majority of coffee shops I've been to have never had a line of people waiting. So, rush or cutting time has not being an issue. I think it is primarily a lack of good basic use of the equipment they have and total lack of even middle of the grade technique. Most dump grinds in the PF, hit it (if at all) with a tamper at random angles and pressures, put it in the machine, hit the button, and expect some magic to happen inside. What you get is basically no better than the garbage sold at Starbucks of DD. Several times I've even stopped them right before putting the portafilter in the machine and told them to cancel my order, refund or not. Again, the is not everyone, but by far the majority has fallen into a variant of that.

And frankly, it ANYONE takes 15 min, or even 5 really, to make something so simple as a espresso, latte, cappuccino, or macchiato they really have no clue what they are doing. Even remotely, and that includes the people with seriously elaborate and unnecessary routine.

I guess a lot of it depends on your ease of access to 3rd wave shops. I moved recently from within walking distance to a few shops to ~15-20 min drive away from the nearest one. A 40 min round trip for a latte isn't practical for me most mornings.

I've also found that a lot of the shops in my area are fairly inconsistent, the quality of the drink is often directly related to who is behind the bar. Some of the staff makes stuff that blows away what I do at home...and some of them don't. I purely mean as a subjective judgement of taste here, as I make no latte art at home.

Overall, with these two factors in consideration, I've trended towards avoiding shops as I've gotten better at working my own gear. If I lived closer, I think the story would be different even with the inherent inconsistency of having different employees pulling shots.

Mat-O-Matic wrote: During most of the pandemic I've been drinking different blends. Recently, I was in their shop for the first time for a long time and was surprised at how good my old favorite tasted. It was balanced and sweet and complex. So I went back the next day to have another. It was made by the guy who's known for being one of the more serious, senior baristas. It was... ok. Too bright and typical of the reasons I hadn't liked it before.

A good breakfast spot does a great job serving Big Trouble, which I don't care to pay for at home (they don't sell the 5# bags I prefer and are pricier than other options I like), so that's fun to get if I'm out. Not often these days!

Meanwhile, a third wave shop in town is able to coax flavors from their espresso that I do not easily or consistently achieve at home. On a recent day trip to the Twin Cities I had a shot at Wesley Andrew's that positively redefined what I think can be possible. It had all the hallmarks of 3rd wave OJ, but was balanced and delightful. The citrus, rather than being bright and forward, was spiced and integral with the texture of the shot. If there's a way for something to simultaneously taste like earl grey tea and great, chocolatey espresso, that's what this was.

Love the description of what a home espresso setup turned out not to be. I use my machine in myriad ways and for all sorts of fun stuff that I would not have expected.

Matt, Please check your Inbox...

I found a great deal in common with dsc106's original post.
What really strikes a cord with me is the comment about reaching a paradigm shift with owning an espresso machine. However I can't claim any impressions regarding 3rd wave shops. Don't think I've ever been to one, not sure what they are.

Having consumed quite a lot of coffee over the course of my life, I had leveled off with my experience and knowledge of coffee throughout the last 40 years or so to simply:
1. Appreciating fresh grinding for every daily pot of drip made coffee. Beans from whatever grocery or local roaster was a current favorite. Often carrying a thermos full to work of the mornings brew.
2. French press at home as a treat.
3. Espresso with desert in Italian restaurants on occasion, or maybe a stray cappuccino.

Something happened at the beginning of 2020, which caused me to begin craving espresso in the middle of the afternoons between jobs. I started dropping in on every cafe I could find, to try their espresso. Every one I tried was startlingly unsatisfactory. Eventually I gave up on the coffee shops for espresso, and started visiting my favorite local Italian restaurant between lunch and dinner hours to beg an espresso or couple of ristrettos.

That got old, and expensive, so I started surfing ebay for a starter espresso machine. Theres another story, suffice to say third time was a charm in getting eBay sellers to properly pack an espresso machine to ship.

It's this whole event of researching and starting up my first real at-home espresso kit, that initiated my coffee life paradigm shift. Talk about not knowing what I didn't know! I went into this with so many false assumptions, it's miraculous that I made it as far as I've come without giving up the first week. I actually believed in the beginning that espresso was made from "espresso" beans.

I credit the lion's share of my research success to this site, and the knowledge shared by the participants here on HB.
In learning from scratch almost everything to get started making espresso with my beautiful 40 year old Elektra lever machine, I've expanded my coffee life at least 10 fold in the last 9 months. Because of my quest to keep preferred roasted beans within the perfect bandwidth of freshness, as needed for espresso, I transitioned rapidly from local grocery and intermittent roasted beans, to specialty beans ordered online and roasted fresh. Not satisfied with this, I am now well underway with home roasting my own. Talk about a new world. The myriad of flavor profiles now available to me at my own convenience is somewhat overwhelming at times.

I'm still a grasshopper with all of this, but I'm enjoying so much more recreation with coffee in general than ever before. I'm also looking at retail offerings in cafes with a much more critical eye. I don't expect to get a satisfactory cup usually, so I don't bother ordering, but if and when I do, I will certainly be much more appreciative and apt to strike up a conversation with the barista to compliment their service.